


S.O.B.

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Punisher (Comics), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: David gets some work done.





	S.O.B.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychedelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelia/gifts).

> Kris asked for cyberpunk indulgence. I'm upset, so we got this.

The deal is, Frank does his best to show up promptly after taking a beating that damages his augments, and in return, David doesn't bitch about making repairs on tech he literally just fabricated, built, and installed sometimes hours before Frank shows up broken.

It's a rough deal, and David knows they both think they're getting the short end of it.

Honestly, it's hard to be sympathetic, sometimes. David knows it's a psychological thing, a PTSD or a trauma-brain thing, the way Frank wants to slink off, deal with all his injuries alone. The man despises hospitals with a passion David's rarely seen, and given what David knows about his recent past -- surprisingly little, all things given, but enough -- it does make sense for him to have a sort of traumatic avoidance thing going on. 

Really, it's less the avoidance itself that David finds insufferable, it's the way Frank refuses to work on it. He's gotten horrible infection after horrible infection, he's got scars that could be neat, stitched closed lines but instead are jagged, pitted things from where the wounds gnarled proud flesh worked together to close the gap. He's _ suffered _ for his hangup against seeing a professional and he's put himself through _ agony _with his macho, don't-let-them-see-you-hurt bullshit. 

David wants to grab him and shake him until it sinks in that David's here to _ help_, not take advantage of him when he's 'weak'. 

Like Frank's _ever _weak. 

"You're a fucking dumbass," David snarls, twisting a bolt that's impacted deep into it's housing. Frank says nothing; Frank is blessedly unconscious for this. That had been enough of a fight, getting him to agree to let David put him under for this particular procedure. 

Evidently you can fix a man on the regular, do all his major (and minor, and fucking cosmetic) repair work, and you can even fuck that man, but ask him to let you anesthetize him so he's not awake while you carve the pieces of his augment that he's gotten impacted in his own human meat back out so the meat can heal before the ruined augment in question is rebuilt and reinstalled -- ask him to let you do _ that _and you're suddenly going too fucking far.

Honestly, dealing with Frank is like working with some spandex-wearing idiot from one of those old comics. A parody of masculinity wrapped in hyper violence and trauma, loosed upon the world to right the wrongs of an evil society. Big difference being that Frank's a real bonafide human being and he's not just knocking street thugs and supervillains out, he's murdering crooked politicians and exposing corruption in the police force as he murders his way down a list of very powerful, very bad people who are supposed to be in charge.

It's exhausting. It's all exhausting. David used to have a normal(ish) life here. He had _ hours_. He went _ home _at night, usually alone, and he slept like a fucking baby, never worried more than in passing if his clients were going to do something stupid and get hurt after they left. 

It's four in the goddamn morning and he's performing a surgery he's only ever read about needing to be done, because Frank refused to go to anyone else and it took two solid hours of yelling, begging, and cajoling to get Frank to let him do this with him put under. 

Another twist, the bolt's housing scraping back against bone it's not supposed to touch, and David makes a noise that's half a gag and half a sob, and he _ hates _Frank sometimes, he really does. He's not a goddamn medic, this is something that should be done under bright lights in a surgical theater with a team of doctors and nurses, everything sterile and neat. It sure as fuck shouldn't be being done in a basement, in shitty fluorescent lighting, by a man who has generously been called a 'manchanic'. 

He has no medical training outside of integrating augments. This isn't what he went to school for, this isn't what he signed up for when he opened the shop, however illicit his dealing were in the beginning. Asking him to carve up a man he loves, a man he wants to see safe and healthy, after two hours of fighting and eight more of worry, waiting for Frank to drag himself back in when he'd left to go work out whatever 'case' was on his place that night?

Yeah, he's a little overwhelmed. It's bullshit. No one should be asked to deal with this level of fuckery.

This time the bolt moves, the housing locked, and with a grunt of effort, David finally gets it to start coming free. It's going to be stripped to hell, he'll probably have to replace the whole thing, but that's not important. What's important is that it's free, dropped onto the tray so David can take two seconds to breathe, refusing to cry because tears will only make it harder to see and that'll just make it all take longer.

Frank's maybe not the only one struggling not to be seen as weak.

"When you wake up, I'm gonna slap the shit out of you," David huffs, picking up the pliers and getting to work on the next bolt housing.

One down, five more to go. 

"Oorah, you son of a bitch," David grumbles, setting his teeth and twisting.


End file.
